Sales
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How Right Should the Customer Be?
Sales & Marketing
Magazine Article
A Radical Prescription for Sales
Sales & Marketing
Magazine Article
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Fixing Pharma’s Incentives Problem in the Wake of the U.S. Opioid Crisis
Sales Digital ArticleReward outcomes, not volume. -
The Go-to-Market Approach Startups Need to Adopt
Entrepreneurship Digital ArticleUnderstand what your customers want. -
Negotiating with Clients You Can’t Afford to Lose
Negotiations Digital ArticleRemember that they need you too. -
Why Salespeople Need to Develop “Machine Intelligence”
Sales Digital ArticleAutomation is coming. -
In the Best Sales Teams, About Half of the People Are in Support Roles
Sales Digital ArticleFree your customer-facing staff to do their work. -
Your New Hit Product Might Be Underpriced
Pricing Digital ArticleSometimes, runaway success is a sign you could have charged more. -
Great Salespeople Are Born, but Great Sales Forces Are Made
Sales Digital ArticleEven natural sellers need training, support, and a strategy. -
Uber’s New Tipping Policy Is a Mistake
Pricing Digital ArticleA confusing system is worse than an unpopular one. -
More Universities Need to Teach Sales
Business education Digital ArticleOver half of U.S. college grads will work in the field at some point. -
Despite Dire Predictions, Salespeople Aren’t Going Away
Sales & Marketing Digital ArticleThe death of the salesman has been greatly exaggerated. -
Are You Really Getting a Discount, or Is It Just a Pricing Trick?
Pricing Digital ArticleWhat list price actually means. -
The Fine Line Between When Low Prices Work and When They Don’t
Pricing Digital ArticleYou have to know what you’re doing. -
Selling to Customers Who Do Their Homework Online
Sales Digital ArticleLessons from car dealerships. -
Winning Back Lost Customers
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleFor any service company that bills on a recurring basis, a key variable is the rate of churn: How many customers cancel? Firms with high churn spend a... -
When You Need Sales Specialists, Not Sales Generalists
Sales Digital ArticleComplicated product lines require more expertise. -
Help Your Salespeople Spend Time on the Right Things
Sales Digital ArticleSix questions every sales manager should ask. -
Cheap Drugs from Canada Won’t Reduce U.S. Drug Prices
Economics & Society Digital ArticleIt’s just an election-year fantasy. -
Hiring Star Salespeople Isn’t the Best Way to Grow
Sales Digital ArticleYour sales process matters too. -
You Can Charge Women More, but Should You?
Pricing Digital ArticlePricing strategies are running up against ethics. -
The 8 Types of Salespeople
Sales & Marketing VideoOnly three are effective.
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Negotiating with Clients You Can’t Afford to Lose
Negotiations Digital ArticleRemember that they need you too. -
Why Salespeople Need to Develop "Machine Intelligence"
Sales & Marketing Digital ArticleAutomation is coming. -
Fixing Pharma’s Incentives Problem in the Wake of the U.S. Opioid Crisis
Sales Digital ArticleReward outcomes, not volume. -
The Truth About Customer Experience
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleCompanies have long emphasized touchpoints--the many critical moments when customers interact with the organization on their way to purchase and after.... -
The Go-to-Market Approach Startups Need to Adopt
Entrepreneurship Digital ArticleUnderstand what your customers want. -
How to Succeed at Key Account Management
Sales Digital ArticleKey account management (KAM) is one of the most important changes in selling that has emerged during the past two decades. KAM is a radically different organizational process used by business-to-business suppliers to manage their relationships with strategically-important customers, and it produces measurable business benefits. Not surprisingly, smart suppliers are keen to implement KAM. But, […] -
Uber’s New Tipping Policy Is a Mistake
Pricing Digital ArticleA confusing system is worse than an unpopular one. -
Consulting Is More Than Giving Advice
Technology & Operations Magazine ArticleEffective management consulting has eight fundamental objectives: responding to a client's request for information; providing solutions to specific problems;... -
The End of Solution Sales
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleIn recent decades sales reps have become adept at discovering customers' needs and selling them "solutions." This worked because customers didn't know... -
Business Marketing: Understand What Customers Value
Financial management Magazine ArticleGauging—and communicating—what your products and services are worth to customers has never been more important. -
Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works
Motivating people Magazine ArticleCompanies fiddle constantly with their incentive plans—but most of their changes have little effect. Here’s a better approach. -
Competing on Customer Journeys
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleAs digital technology has enabled shoppers to easily research and buy products online, sellers have been scrambling after them, trying to understand and... -
What Makes a Good Salesman
Developing employees Magazine ArticleBefore they have received even a day of training, the best salespeople already have two seemingly incompatible qualities in abundance: empathy with customers and a need to overcome their hesitation to buy. -
Why Most Product Launches Fail
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleVeteran product launch PR executives Joan Schneider and Julie Hall examine the five most frequent reasons why new products flop: The company can't support... -
Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do
Strategy & Execution Magazine ArticleShoppers once relied on familiar salespeople to help them find exactly what they wanted--and sometimes to suggest additional items they hadn't even thought... -
Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople
Sales Digital ArticleIf you ask an extremely successful salesperson, “What makes you different from the average sales rep?” you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally. Over the past decade, I have […] -
How to Really Motivate Salespeople
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleMuch of what we believe about the best ways to compensate and motivate the sales force is based on theory and lab experiments. But in the past decade,... -
How to Fight a Price War
Marketing Magazine ArticleIf you find yourself facing a price war, you’ll need to understand how it started in order to respond effectively. Often the best counterattack does not involve a retaliatory price cut. -
A Better Way to Map Brand Strategy
Sales & Marketing Magazine ArticleCompanies may want to shift a brand's position--to exploit less crowded territory, for example, or grow sales. Companies have long used perceptual mapping... -
How to Launch Your Digital Platform
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Magazine ArticleThe ubiquity of internet access has caused a sharp rise in the number of businesses offering platforms that connect users for communication or commerce....
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HBR Tools: Pricing for Profit
Strategy & Execution Tool29.95PRICE IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Learn how to turn your raw data into a clear analysis to make smart and informed pricing decisions with the HBR Tool: Pricing... -
HBR Tools: Customer Lifetime Value
Sales & Marketing Tool39.95Not all customers are created equally. Figure out if the dollars you invest today are delivering the high-quality customers of tomorrow with HBR's Customer... -
The Springfield Nor'easters: Maximizing Revenues in the Minor Leagues
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing... -
Uber: Changing The Way The World Moves
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95In 2015, Uber is building what may be the largest point-to-point transportation network of its kind; it is literally changing the way the world moves.... -
HubSpot: Inbound Marketing and Web 2.0
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95The case 'HubSpot: Inbound Marketing and Web 2.0' introduces the concept of inbound marketing, pulling customer prospects toward a business through the... -
Natureview Farm
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95Explores channel management issues in the U.S. food industry. Natureview Farm, a Vermont-based producer of organic yogurt with $13 million in revenues,... -
Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95Chris Prangel, a recent MBA graduate, has returned home to West Virginia to manage the marketing operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company, a family-owned... -
Medicines Co.
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95It is early 2001 and the Medicines Co. just received FDA approval to market Angiomax, a blood thinner to be used during angioplasties and heart procedures.... -
General Electric vs. Westinghouse in Large Turbine Generators (A)
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95Describes the U.S. large turbine generator industry in early 1963, a period of severe price cutting and depressed industry conditions. Presents data to... -
Optical Distortion, Inc. (A)
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95A new product, contact lenses for chickens, is to be introduced by a small firm formed to market the product. An entry strategy must be planned including... -
Haier: Taking a Chinese Company Global in 2011
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95In 2011, Haier, China's leading appliance manufacturer, had over $20 billion in worldwide sales and had just been named the leading refrigerator manufacturer... -
Biopure Corp.
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95It is early 1998 and Biopure Corp., a small biopharmaceutical firm with no sales revenues in its ten-year history, has just received government approval... -
Atlantic Computer: A Bundle of Pricing Options
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95Atlantic Computer, a leading player in the high-end server market, has detected a marketplace opportunity in the basic server segment. They have developed... -
Saxonville Sausage
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95Saxonville Sausage, a $1.5 billion manufacturer of pork sausage products, is experiencing financial stress because its leading product lines have lately... -
Arck Systems
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software... -
IKEA Invades America
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95In 2002, the IKEA Group is the world's top furniture retailer, with 154 stores worldwide. In the United States, IKEA operates 14 stores, all of which... -
J.C. Penney's "Fair and Square" Pricing Strategy
Sales & Marketing Case Study8.95As a he gets ready to release 2nd quarter 2012 results, Ron Johnson, the new CEO of department store J.C. Penney, is reconsidering the dramatic changes... -
Wal-Mart Stores in 2003
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95Examines Wal-Mart's development over three decades and provides financial and descriptive detail of its domestic operations. In 2003, Wal-Mart's Supercenter... -
Precision Worldwide, Inc.
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95A competitor has developed and introduced a superior product that is less costly to manufacture. Precision Worldwide must decide whether to match the... -
Karen Leary (A)
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95Describes the evolution of the working relationship of Karen Leary, a new manager of a Merrill Lynch retail branch, and Ted Chung, a new financial consultant...